Michael Sheen doesn't do impressions. But he did a mean Tony Blair, and he's about to carry Frost/Nixon straight to the Oscars.

It takes stones, playing a public figure in a movie. You've got the inevitable side-by-side comparisons on YouTube, the inevitable harping about how you got it all wrong, the inevitable What, was Rich Little busy? But we live in extraordinary times and we need extraordinary actors to bring them to life, and Michael Sheen, most famous until now for his twin turns as Tony Blair in 2003's The Deal and 2006's The Queen, is setting a new standard for playing men who make history.

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To wit: This month, Sheen headlines his first major American film playing celebrity journalist David Frost in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon. Frost's televised interviews with Richard Nixon aired over four nights in 1977 and attracted more than forty million viewers, and the film's nearly verbatim reenactments of those meetings give Sheen and his costar, Frank Langella, ample opportunity to chew scenery. Sheen resists and cedes the spotlight to Langella's barn-burning portrayal of Tricky Dick. It's just as well. Sheen is too busy carrying the movie and channeling Frost's nervous, quiet desperation to grandstand for the camera.

It's a tough gig, re-creating moments that are etched in the public consciousness, but time and again, Sheen has proven himself up to it. And it's a good thing, too, because we need more actors like Sheen -- men who understand our world and have the stones to do something about it.